Shout Mouse Press Blog
It’s hard to keep up with all that our authors do (for us too)! We’ll be sharing updates from our programs, news about book releases, and pieces from our authors here. For media about our authors’ accomplishments, check out our press room.
On November 19, 2015, Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander will kick off the launch of the latest series of Reach Incorporated Books by Teens. We're especially excited about this because Kwame's work with his organization Book-in-a-Day is part of the inspiration for Shout Mouse Press! We can't wait for Kwame to meet his legacy authors and to celebrate the power of their words in the world.
Read MoreOn October 24, the authors of Shout Mouse took part in the second annual DC Public Library Author Fest. While we were selling books at our table, an excited Shout Mouse reader came up to meet our authors and share how she has already been using their words in her college classroom at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, August 12th, we had the incredible opportunity to meet leaders working with at-risk youth from all over the world and to share with them our books! Through a program called the IVLP which is run by the State Department, we met with folks from: Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Congo, Egypt, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ukraine.
Read More“I was held back in second grade,” one of the writers said. “But it wasn’t my fault--the teacher was evil.” The rest of the group started to become engaged as they shared stories of all of their evil teachers and their cruel tactics: pinching them, hitting them with rulers, calling their parents. They decided they wanted to write a story about an evil second grade teacher. They talked about how they had told their parents about their evil teachers but nobody believed them. These writers wanted to create a story to empower kids to make a difference for themselves.
Read MoreIn one night this past weekend, two young men from the communities served by Shout Mouse were shot and killed in senseless acts of violence...
I cannot help thinking of our authors when I hear this news, and of the weight of growing up in such a world where life is taken so carelessly outside your front door. I'm thinking about the psychic pain of not feeling safe at home. It sticks with me.
Read MoreGuess who was spotlighted recently in a Boston Globe article called, "The Summer Reading List We Really Need"?
Our fearless, peerless partners at Reach, Inc., for not only teaching literacy skills, but for "cultivating a love of reading." We're thrilled to be coaching their teens once again to write books that both educate and entertain, and that inspire young readers to ask, "Wait, can I be an author, too?" (Our answer: Yes, please.)
Read MoreWe’re excited to be working on our THIRD annual series of teen-authored children’s books with the writers of Reach Incorporated!
We’re half-way through our second week of workshops, and our authors have narrowed down their massive list of story ideas to begin writing four creative, thoughtful, and engaging books.
Read MoreWoohoo! Shout Mouse books on national radio and Kojo Nnamdi's 2015 Summer Reading List!
Mark Hecker of Reach, Inc. knocked it out of the soundbooth today on The Kojo Nnamdi Show's Kids and YA Summer Reading program. He was an incredible ambassador not only for Reach's teen authors but also for the authors of Ballou Senior High School, and Beacon House.
Read MoreShout of the Day goes to End Slavery Now for highlighting the important work of the Restavek Freedom Foundation writers!
"Telling our kids about the bad things happening in the world is a tough task. Restavek Freedom Foundation is helping to make that conversation easier with their children's books written by former child slaves."
Read More"Buy this book," says poet/activist/educator Kyle Dargan. "Share it with other young people and use it as a tool to educate yourselves and initiate conversations with others."
We are grateful to Kyle for his incisive foreword, for his call to action on behalf of these authors, and most importantly for his commitment to voicing hard and necessary truths in the name of justice. Read his blog post and smart foreword below, and SHARE WITH EDUCATORS EVERYWHERE.
Read MoreBOOK LAUNCH!
We did it! The authors of Ballou Senior High School launched their beautiful new book into the world: Our Lives Matter. Incredible day yesterday of readings, autographs, hugs, and lots and lots of applause. Thank you to everyone who made this happen and was there to cheer on these authors! And thank you most importantly to the authors themselves. We are so proud!
We started writing a week before the decision came down in Ferguson. We finished two days after protestors took to the streets in Baltimore.
Through the course of a historic year in our country's ongoing Civil Rights Movement, 30 students from Ballou Senior High School came together to add something powerful to the national conversation about race, inequality, violence, and justice.
On Tuesday, May 12, 2015, I was given an incredible opportunity: to meet President Obama and put our authors' stories in his hands.
WHAT?!! That's how I felt. Here's how it happened:
Read MoreWow! Shout of the Day definitely goes to our inspiring partner Reach, Inc.for being honored with the Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation! We are so proud to partner with Reach, and thrilled that our collaborative book projects help make the case that they are one of the most innovative programs in the country. Hurrah!
Read MoreOne of Miss Ramble's 8th grade reading students at Hardy Middle School in NW DC picked up Ballou Story Project's "How to Grow Up Like Me" from his school library and couldn't put it down. He showed his teacher and neither could she. Now he and his fellow students are reading, discussing, and responding to these memoirs for the rest of the school year. Says Miss Ramble, "They can't wait to come to class." They want to meet these authors. They have so many questions. They have so much to say.
Read MoreWe're not just shouting today at Shout Mouse, we're doing a little jig. Why, you ask? Because in partnership with the good folks at Reach, Inc. we just delivered nearly 1,000 Shout Mouse and Reach teen-authored books to DCPS Libraries, who want every one of our titles in every one of their schools.
Every Shout Mouse book in every public school in DC. !!!
One of the many delights was seeing our new authors meeting, so to speak, our already published authors from Reach Inc and Ballou High School: the girls loved reading the high-flying adventures from Reach and the bravely vulnerable essays from Ballou.
Read MoreWe are so proud of Dreonna Richardson, one of the essayists in How To Grow Up Like Me, who was featured in WAMU 88.5's series Beating the Odds, in which education reporter Kavitha Cardoza profiles students in the Washington, D.C. area who have overcome struggles and found ways to thrive academically and socially.
Read MoreIn June 2014, Shout Mouse Press will travel to Haiti to partner with the Restavek Freedom Foundation. 'Restavek' is a form of modern-day slavery that persists in Haiti, affecting one in every 15 children. Restavek Freedom's mission is to end child slavery in Haiti in our lifetime through child advocay, education, and community mobiization.
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It's been a while since I was moved to tears at a reading, but on Thursday, May 29, 2014, three Ballou Story Project authors brought me there. These three writers--M.H. Jordan, Christopher Allen, and Gerald McBrayer--were being celebrated at the awards ceremony for the Global Harmony Through Personal Excellence essay competition, a citywide contest for DCPS students that called for essays about daily acts of courage.
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